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Regreening the Metropolis: Pathways to More Ecological Cities: Keynote Address
Author(s) -
PLATT RUTHERFORD H.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1196/annals.1319.020
Subject(s) - urban sprawl , metropolitan area , geography , zoning , population , urbanization , environmental planning , urban planning , economic growth , environmental protection , ecology , political science , environmental health , economics , medicine , archaeology , law , biology
A bstract : Eighty percent of the American population now lives in metropolitan regions whose geographic extent continues to expand even as many core cities and inner‐tier suburbs lose middle‐class populations, jobs, and tax base. Urban sprawl and the socioeconomic polarizing of metropolitan America have been fostered by public policies including (1) federal subsidies for new infrastructure on the urban fringe; (2) tax policies that favor home ownership over rental properties; (3) local zoning codes; and (4) federal and state neglect of older urban neighborhoods. In the face of diminished access to “nature” outside of metropolitan areas, locally based efforts to protect and restore greenspaces within urban areas seek to make older communities more habitable and more “ecological.” Some pathways to more ecological cities include the following: (1) the notion of rus in urbe (“the country in the city”); (2) the “usable outdoors”; (3) garden cities and eco‐villages; (4) green buildings and green roofs; (5) urban biodiversity; (6) ecological services; and (7) space, nature, and place.